How to use Adobe Fuse and Photoshop Creative Cloud and Pose figures Tutorial

How to use the new Adobe Fuse to create amazing Posed figures for use in Photoshop CC 2017 2015 etc

Basic / Start of using Adobe ® Fuse

This is a new preview technology in CC 2017 / 2015 and is a great new feature that means you don't have to create designs via Poser and Daz but can do this directly in the Creative Cloud.

I have to say the naming is confusing as 3D animation has always been in CC in some form and another such as in Photoshop but the new bit is the joining of Fuse via the CC library into Photoshop and accessing the pose-able models with animations. To start with it, it does require the use of Fuse and CC libraries and then getting the result into PS. It is not something solely in PS. I guess the bit about the CC animation is that perhaps the feature will get into the Character animator and perhaps After Effects (though probably not Illustrator but then again, why not) and certainly not Dreamweaver.

This runthrough is not a massive study of all the possible ways of using the Fuse into PS but it is a basic approach as set at the moment (as it is a preview, perhaps the whole process will be even more streamlined shortly). The image below is one of the models with the default setup with no rendering

Technology Previews

Set the preference for the enable CC 3D animations to on in the technology preview and restart PS (probably best)

Fuse

Start Fuse up. If you don't have Fuse then you will have to download it via the CC subscription. Once you have the tool, start it up. If you have used Daz Studio or Poser Pro etc then you will have seen similar 3D models such as men and women as well as a few monsters in the mix. Not sure why they don't have dogs, cats, old people, youngsters etc.

Basic Setup in Adobe Fuse

Anyway, will see the basic setup of a head as well as torso and leg and arm and the key thing is to click on one of the items in each category though I guess you could add a character with four heads (not sure that feature will be in there any time soon). This is all in the assemble section and you can create a variety of different artworks just with this setup though I assume there will be more available (perhaps to buy) such as in Poser with the thousands of additional models. You can move and rotate the figure in the assemble room. Once you have the model more or less in the arm / head etc that you want you can then move on to the customize and other sections. In customize, you can find a whole range of different settings which you can tweak such as the size of the arm, teeth, head, skull etc. You can also randomize all but the results can be pretty weird at times. Not sure why they don't have a randomize in the assemble section as well. Once you have more or less setup the body then you can add some clothes (if you want). Personally in Poser I find this the hardest bit and I would love to see an easy feature in Poser like fuse, simple click and add a shirt to a model - in most cases I am not too fussed about the shirt or trousers (or pants) but they are handy to add otherwise you just have to use head shots all the time to avoid any nudity issues.

Clothes and Adobe Fuse

The clothes are fairly limited but OK, would love to see more period items etc but I guess at some point more will be added (again via Mixmo etc) Some tweaking is required with the clothes as sometimes the hair is too big for the hats etc. You can make all kinds of weird combinations of clothes as in life such as adding gas masks and beanie hats and more. Select the object if you don't want to have a hat and then go to the edit menu and delete (I wish there was a preset section with no hat). You can also add some textures and there are a number of options such as edge wear, texture resolutions, color, creases, roughness etc and all worthy of more exploration but the basic use does mean you can change the color of the skirt and shirt etc as well as add creases etc. It is best to zoom in and select the individual items of clothing as sometimes the results can be hard to see with the model in the distance. The set of defaults are pretty good and you can turn your shirt into metal and different patterns and much more and each have their owl selections of settings so a lot more to explore. Sadly there is no randomization feature here as you could just play havoc with your model's clothes using this feature.

Skin / Hair and Fuse

There are also a number of settings for the skin (100s of options such as beauty marks and skin variation lightness etc) as well as teeth color and also a load of options for the hair and even an option for the metalness of the skin. If you love messing around with options then this will be heaven for you though I wish I could just add metal / fabrics to the skin as well as well as the hair etc. Now you have your complete model.

CC Libraries

You can now save it to CC libraries and just select a library for your new character. You can also save it to Mixmo as well. On saving it to the library you will see a statement saying that the OBJ has been exported and also the result has been sent to the Adobe Server. I would love to see a little more control here and perhaps a little bit of a blurb about the actual process involved and also a way to send only the head perhaps, as perhaps that is all I want in my image. The image below is just a combination of multiple 3D layers and different poses of the same model previous and combined with oil paint filter

Photoshop side of things

Create a new document and go to the CC library and go to the correct library (I generally stick to the very boring 'Fuse 1' and 'Fuse 2' but as I add items I guess I will stretch it to things such as 'head 1' or 'Kate 1' etc. and select the item and drag to the document. Personally I find the default setup for the 3D very odd but then I am not a super 3D user and I would just love to see the default setting to be not what seems to be a silhouette where you then have to struggle to get some lighting to see the face again. Display the 3D panel and then go to the infinite light line. Go back to the properties panel and select one of the presets (if you are great with 3D then I guess you will know how to add lights etc and manipulate them). Choose the default lights. Click the 'hair_skeleton' in the 3D panel and you will see the properties connect with Fuse and add a load of animations. I am certain they are all useful such as standard t-pose and I am certain others can be added at a later point. You can also setup the properties via the right side menu to have poses only (and not animations or both). If you select poses only, the properties will show poses in body section and not animations.

Faces and Adobe Fuse

There is a face section in the panel as well and you can choose a range of expressions such as 'laughing softly'. It is quite possible that the settings will be different for different users (no idea) depending on your setup with Mixmo (you will have to check Adobe's site for that). You can set the strength of the smile and other properties as well as rotate the head or have the head nod up and down. You can continue to change the camera, change the lights, add backgrounds, add animations (as described).

Snapshots

The animations also mean you can have a snapshot at a particular point so if you have a model walking towards the camera you can move the timeline playhead and capture a particular mood at a particular time and the animation feature throws even more ways to tweak things as there are many different options in the video timeline to change the style, position, 3D lights, 3D camera position, 3D materials etc. There are a lot of articles about those kinds of things in a lot more detail than I could ever go into. The next thing to do is just flatten the image/ layer or perhaps you may wish to render the artwork to a finer degree or perhaps turn it into a sketch render or perhaps save the model as an OBJ file or 3D Earth or DAE format or perhaps save it as a layer and combine with the same 3D model or different model and perhaps effects to the mix (which sort of makes the render a little redundant and perhaps also mix in with backgrounds and mists and light and more from other 3D apps).

Mixing and fusing adjustments

Personally, I am enjoy using the 3D feature with adjustments such as black and white as well as combining with oil paint and camera raw as below but then that is me, I know others prefer the more hyper-realistic features of 3D (each to their own)

Adobe Fuse / Illustrator

Weirdly, if you go to the CC libraries in Illustrator, the fuse model is no available. Not sure why it can't be just imported in as an image file but I guess it is not as simple as all that as the model includes a a lot of animations and poses etc and is not just a standard image. I really hope that the app does get some access to be able to choose to bring in a snapshot of the model with the animations / poses available purely for a snapshot purpose. Unless, Illustrator ever gets an animation feature (I can only wish). Still, the obvious work around is just to work the model in PS and then flatten it and add the result to he CC library and then import that via the CC library into AI and then use it as a brush stroke or symbol or perhaps use with image trace (you will have remove the clipping mask before you can trace) and use tools such as the poster edge and edit color adjust color balance to create illustrations. An example below of the same model used on this page but in vector via the image trace

Final thoughts and Adobe Fuse

Will it ever replace Poser for me ?? perhaps not but it is a really nice starting point and an easy way of bringing 3D figures and animations and poses into Photoshop